A report published last week in Health Care Management Review downplays the importance of nurse-patient staffing ratios in the quality of patient care. But Linda Hamilton, two-term president of the Minnesota Nurses Association, maintains that those ratios are still the 20,000-member organization's utmost concern. —MedCityNews.com, 11/29/11 More »

New York Times - When Rose Ann DeMoro speaks, her voice sounds like a burbling faucet. Ms. DeMoro, 61, is executive director of National Nurses United, a 170,000-member union that she runs with dramatic flair. —New York Times, 11/20/11 More »

Premium costs for family health insurance in California increased by 52% from 2003 to 2010 and consume a larger share of residents' income, according to a study by the Commonwealth Fund, the San Francisco Chronicle reports (Colliver, San Francisco Chronicle, 11/17). —California Healthline, 11/17/11 More »

Family health insurance premiums in California went up 52 percent between 2003 and 2010 and now exceed 20 percent of income, according to a study released today. —San Francisco Chronicle, 11/17/11 More »

Premiums for employer-sponsored health insurance have risen faster than incomes in every state in the nation, according to a report released Thursday. The analysis of federal data by the Commonwealth Fund, an independent research organization, shed new light on the state-by-state picture while essentially confirming a national trend, highlighted in other recent surveys of employer-sponsored insurance, of greater premiums for skimpier benefits. —Washington Post, 11/16/11 More »

The G-20 meeting in Cannes got under way last week. The sunny beach resort, playground to movie stars and media moguls, was an odd choice for a somber meeting. As President Obama touched down in Air Force One, the Greek government was on the verge of collapse, austerity was sweeping Europe and the future of the Eurozone was in doubt. —Capital Times, 11/09/11 More »

The G-20 meeting in Cannes got underway this week. The sunny beach resort, playground to movie stars and media moguls was an odd choice for a somber G-20 meeting. As President Obama and Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner touched down in Air Force One, the Greek government was on the verge of collapse, austerity was sweeping Europe and the future of the Eurozone in doubt. —CommonDreams, 11/04/11 More »

Does protesting and pressuring powerful players in political and economic life matter? Can the White House and Congress really be moved on questions so central as taxing financial speculation? Yes. And here’s the evidence of how of it works. —The Nation, 11/03/11 More »

When Barack Obama was a senator, he proposed a Global Poverty Act to fulfill the U.N.’s Millennium Development Goals. The cost in additional foreign aid: $845 billion. On Thursday, as part of the G20 summit, Bill Gates, co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, delivered a report on “financing for development” that proposes global taxes on America and other “rich” nations to make the Global Poverty Act a reality.
—AIM - Accuracy in Media, 11/02/11 More »

Many of this country's biggest companies paid no federal taxes - or even made money through credits and refunds from the government - over the past three years by using an array of loopholes and tax breaks, according to a report released Thursday. —Washington Post, 11/02/11 More »

Capping many months of campaigning across the U.S., nurses from National Nurses United (NNU) – the largest union of registered nurses in the country – brought their urgent message for a financial transaction tax (FTT) to Washington, D.C., today, rallying in front of the White House and Department of Treasury. —Press Release, 10/31/11 More »

More than two dozen people in red shirts affiliated with National Nurses United stood outside Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s fifth floor City Hall office this morning chanting, "Arrest the 1 percent." —Chicago Tribune, 10/24/11 More »

The East Bay's nonprofit hospitals receive millions of dollars in tax breaks each year to care for the poor and uninsured, yet they provide only a fraction of local charity care, a Bay Area News Group analysis reveals. —Contra Costa Times, 10/23/11 More »

Crowds of shouting people decked in red marched through Ann Arbor streets yesterday, as University of Michigan Health System nurses and their supporters rallied for a finalized contract. —Michigan Daily, 10/13/11 More »

If you want to know just how bad things are for those hit hardest by the Great Recession, ask a nurse: They see more young men suffering heart attacks, more anxiety in children, and more ulcers and stomach illnesses in people of all ages. Financial struggles are forcing more patients to forgo necessary medicines and treatments. A Princeton/Georgia State study reports a 39 percent increase in ER admissions for suicide attempts precipitated by home foreclosures, and a direct correlation between foreclosure rates and increases in emergency-room visits and hospitalization for hypertension, diabetes and anxiety. —Washington Post, 10/04/11 More »

WASHINGTON - As the deficit reduction supercommittee hunts for $1.5 trillion in additional savings, US hospital executives are so worried about having their payments cut that they plan to start lobbying Congress next week to shift the burden onto their elderly patients - specifically by raising the age of eligibility for Medicare.
—The Boston Globe, 09/30/11 More »

As a student nurse, I write in support of Massachusetts House Bill 1506, an act that protects patients from preventable medical errors by prohibiting mandatory overtime. Mandatory overtime requires nurses to stay on after their 12-hour shifts to fill in planned gaps in the schedule. After 12 hours on the job, nurses are statistically more likely to make errors and jeopardize patient safety. —Cape Cod Times, letters to the editor, 09/30/11 More »

Boston - Reviving one of Beacon Hill’s oldest and most hard fought battles – whether to force hospitals to abide by nurse-to-patient staffing levels –nurses cautioned lawmakers Tuesday that they’ve left the care of their constituents at risk by failing to pass a staffing law, and the state’s top hospital official calling mandated staffing requirements a “terrible idea” that would represent a step backwards in the fast-changing health care field. —State House News Service, 09/27/11 More »

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Authorities were investigating the death of a patient who was given a "non-prescribed dosage" of a medical drug by a replacement hired when thousands of nurses went on strike across California, an Oakland police spokeswoman said Sunday.
—Associated Press, 09/25/11 More »